Tens of millions of Americans are living under extreme heat warnings and advice as forecasters warn of “dangerously hot conditions” for the next 24 hours.
“Numerous record highs are predicted to be equalized and/or broken in the Northeast today,” the National Weather Service said in a statement. bulletin Sunday of the heat wave that is expected to last until Tuesday. Taking the humidity into account, the bulletin said the mercury could: hit 105 to 110 degrees Fahrenheit.
An extreme heat warning was issued for large areas of Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey, the bulletin said.
“The extreme heat and humidity will greatly increase the potential for heat-related illness, especially for those who work or participate in outdoor activities,” according to the National Weather Service.
From the southern plains to the northeast, the heat will feel “extremely oppressive,” especially in Washington, D.C., New York City and Boston, the NWS said in a separate tweet. In Boston, forecasters predicted a maximum of 99 degrees, which would break the daily record.
There has already been one heat-related death in New York. The city’s chief medical examiner said hypertensive cardiovascular disease and emphysema were the contributing conditions. No other details about the victim were immediately made available.
In a later bulletin, the NWS said 85 million Americans were warned Sunday about extreme heat and heat advisories. In the U.S, heat kills more people yearly then any other type of weather event.
“There is also stifling heat from central Kansas and Oklahoma to the Middle Mississippi Valley, where a large number of heat advisories and a few extreme heat warnings are in effect,” the NWS said.
Temperatures can reach 111 degrees in parts of Oklahoma, including Tulsa, and thermometers can reach hundreds in Las Vegas and multiple Texas cities.
Southern and western states have been particularly hard hit by sudden droughts. According to the US Drought Monitormore than 63.2% of the country is currently “abnormally dry”, affecting livestock and crops.
Farther north and west, “daily record high” temperatures are possible from Northern California to the Portland and Seattle metro areas by next Tuesday, and a “prolonged heat wave” will begin Sunday and peak in the second half of the week, the NWS said. .
The latest weather warning came after multiple heat emergencies were declared earlier this week, including in Philadelphia, where air-conditioned refrigerated buses are parked and public libraries have extended hours to allow residents to cool off from the heat. Boston and Washington carried out similar plans.
“Climate change is fueling these dastardly heat waves that are almost unbelievable, and we’re not used to it yet,” Kim Knowlton, an assistant clinical professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University, told NBC News earlier this week.
Alex Ruane, a researcher at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told Reuters that as the world warms, “less natural anomaly is needed to push us into the extreme heat categories.”
“Because we’re closer to those thresholds, you’re more likely to get more than one heat wave at the same time. We see this in the United States,” she said.
Conditions will remain largely the same until Monday evening, when a cold front is expected to bring some relief to the northeast and midwest, forecasters said.
But they added that “abnormally high temperatures” will persist throughout the week — and possibly into the southern plains until early next week.